L’Enfant Plaza shut down due to fire/smoke

[PotomacCyclist]

Twitter photo from a passenger, reposted by NBC Washington:

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[jrenaut]

Don’t try to bike through there, either. I work across the street, had to walk my bike two blocks because the roads were closed so they could run shuttle buses.

[PotomacCyclist]

NBC4 is reporting that someone died, possibly because of the smoke. Scary stuff.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/traffic/transit/LEnfant-Plaza-Metro-Station-Closed-Due-to-Smoke-288309501.html

[mstone]

It’s a real tough call: do you stay on a train filling with smoke because a metro rep assures you that’s the thing to do, or do you risk the deadly third rail and potentially getting run over by another train to self-evacuate?

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m still not clear what was going on. It seems like they are saying that the smoke was coming from somewhere in the tunnel, perhaps from something in contact with the electrified rail. If so, then the train operator might have been correct in telling people not to open the doors. But what if the passengers would have been better off just getting out? I read that they were trying to open the doors, but no one could really see anything because all the lights went out.

There are ventilation fans, but they don’t seem to be that powerful. It also took rescuers quite a while to reach the train, something like 40 minutes. I don’t want to go on any rants against Metro because deaths on Metro are relatively rare, much less frequent than deaths on the roads. But I would have thought that rescuers would be set up to reach a disabled train sooner than 40 minutes, especially in one of the central stations.

I’ve never been in this exact type of situation, but I’ve been in stations and on trains when something was clearly burning and smoking. This is a recurring problem, so you would think that there would be both preventive measures as well as rescue plans by emergency response teams to get to people quickly. Especially in the central underground stations. (Many of the suburban lines are above-ground, so passengers wouldn’t get trapped like they can in central D.C.)

I hope those who are listed in critical condition recover. Very sad to hear about the (unnamed) woman who passed away. I sometimes take that Yellow Line train, but recently I’ve been taking the Blue Line (because I don’t want to deal with transferring between lines). (I haven’t biked much because I’m still easing my way back to riding again, after the quad problems of last year.)

[Terpfan]

@mstone 105122 wrote:

It’s a real tough call: do you stay on a train filling with smoke because a metro rep assures you that’s the thing to do, or do you risk the deadly third rail and potentially getting run over by another train to self-evacuate?

Put short–trust metro or trust yourself? I would vote for me. If I stayed on the train then it may get smashed from behind anyway by another train. Plus they have those break spots every hundred or so feet with a phone that you can call them on and be off the track entirely. This is probably the exact opposite advice Metro gives. But ever since I walked from Woodley Park stop to Smithsonian many years ago, I’ve realized trusting Metro is a bad idea.

Just proves why we’re all smart to bike.

[Geoff]

I took the metro yesterday – Cold + Dark + Rain takes all the joy out a ride for me – but, even though Metro’s problems didn’t affect me very much, it did make me think about stepping up my game. My bike has never trapped me in a smoky tunnel.

[dasgeh]

To be fair, public transportation is (probably) the safest form of local travel, at least in terms of immediate safety (not taking into account long term health effects). Not to say it shouldn’t be safer.

[PotomacCyclist]

Many people split up their trips and include both Metro and cycling. I would guess that this practice has increased with the growth of Capital Bikeshare.

[PotomacCyclist]

@dasgeh 105333 wrote:

To be fair, public transportation is (probably) the safest form of local travel, at least in terms of immediate safety (not taking into account long term health effects). Not to say it shouldn’t be safer.

Definitely true. I found these stats in a USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/12/1-dead-2-critical-after-smoke-fills-dc-metro-train/21665841/

“There were 578 fatalities over 10 years on rapid transit systems like the Metro, New York Subway and Chicago Elevated system – an average of about 58 a year, at an overall rate of .375 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.

The fatality rate in a motor vehicle over the past five years has averaged about 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.

Most victims in transit-related accidents (including buses) are non-passengers, according to the National Transit Database.

Nearly half the transit-related fatalities reported in 2012 were people committing suicide or pedestrians.”

So the motor vehicle road network is 3 times as deadly on average as rapid transit/subway systems. It’s troubling that many critics will start to harp on this incident and attack Metro, but they are completely silent during periods of increased carnage on the roads, such as Independence Day weekend, when drunk drivers are mowing down people left and right. Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but that sort of nonsense happens every single year, and no one barely says a word about the bloodshed.

***
Of course, this ignores the significant indirect costs of air pollution and water pollution (from leaking oil and winter salt use), which kills people more slowly or destroys ecosystems and increases food costs.

On the other hand, it’s estimated that cyclists cause about 5 or 6 deaths nationwide, which is far less than the 33,000 people killed by car/truck drivers. Even if you account for the lower number of miles traveled on bike, those are still minuscule numbers.

[mstone]

The difference is that you’re trapped in a tube, and there is nothing to suggest that wmata is capable of sufficient crisis leadership to prevent a minor issue from spiraling out of control and becoming a catastrophe. So yeah, people worry. It’s quite correct that mass transit is safer, but I’ve been convinced that’s in spite of WMATA, not because I’d them. I think it’s a mistake to excuse their incompetence because of a love of transit in general.

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m not excusing them. But for a transportational cyclist, the safety comparisons are important. The danger of the road network and car drivers threatens cyclists more immediately. I take Metro, ride and walk in DC and Virginia. (Occasionally in Maryland too.) I’ve had far more issues with car drivers than anything else (and it’s usually when I’m walking in a crosswalk, with a WALK signal). Yes, it would be terrible to be stuck in a smoke-filled train like that. But it’s also terrible, and far more frequent, to be struck or nearly be struck by a car or truck driver. The latter threatens, and kills, far too many people on a regular basis.

Re the L’Enfant Plaza incident, the lack of communication between WMATA and the DC fire dept. was astonishing, if the reports are accurate. DCFD was not sure if the power was cut off to the 3rd rail in that tunnel. They were told that it was, but then they heard the trains moving on the other level at L’Enfant Plaza (the Blue/Silver/Orange Lines). The DCFD personnel stopped because they thought that meant that the power was still on in the Yellow Line tunnel. The train was not that far from the station and yet it took anywhere between 40 and 60 minutes to evacuate all the passengers, according to the timeline published a couple days after the incident. (They listed exact times of 911 calls and WMATA and DCFD actions that afternoon.) It’s still possible the woman could have died even if the passengers were evacuated much more quickly. But at least there would have been better chances for her survival, and less chance of complications to all the passengers in general if they had been rescued sooner.

[mstone]

Whether cyclists are in more danger from motorists (likely unless someone is joyriding in a tunnel) is basically irrelevant. None of the local media cater to cyclists, that isn’t a demographic to pay the bills. The question relevant to most people in the metro area is whether there will be as good a response if there’s a problem when they’re on metro as there would be if there’s a problem when they’re in their car. At this point the answer seems likely to be no. (For cyclist relevancy, emergency services will probably also reach you faster in a bike accident than they’ll reach metro passengers.) You’re asking what the odds of death are, and others are asking the very reasonable question of what the odds of competent assistance are.

[PotomacCyclist]

Most people are going to react emotionally to the story, which is understandable. But I’m going to try to remind people (not necessarily people who read this forum) about the other common dangers, namely that of the road network, as my ongoing way to help nudge people into recognizing just how deadly that can be to everyone. I’m not going to change the world by doing this, but it’s my small way of trying to increase understanding of this. Maybe somewhere down the line, a shift in attitude helps change a decision about a particular transportation project. Or not. But at least I’ll try. (I’m not criticizing you or anyone else here with this post.)

[mstone]

I think that’s a fine goal in general, but right now the focus should be on making a real change at wmata, instead of letting it stumble on as it has been. (In the immediate context, wmata doesn’t need any help in making excuses that other problems are worse: their own problems are worthy of being fixed, regardless.) In the long run it would be better for all regional transit if there were finally a house cleaning at wmata.

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